The words behind your anime

A Few Words On “Arigatou”

Suisei no Gargantia episode three has our main character Ledo wondering about the strange word “arigatou” the natives use to express gratitude. While the series implies neither side uses any contemporary language, much less Japanese, and the confusion is likely related to cultural differences between Ledo’s and Amy’s societies, it is true that “arigatou” is a very unusual word.

“Arigatou” most often gets translated as “thank you”, which is a viable translation in most any circumstances. But let us break the word up a little.

有り難う –> 有り + 難う

Arigatou –> Exist + Difficult

Let us turn the two keywords into an intelligible phrase:

It is difficult to exist.

The above enigmatic statement does not seem to convey too much gratitude, but it is part of a larger Buddhist idea. All beings are trapped within the cycle of reincarnation, moving between several realms. Low in the hierarchy are hungry spirits and animals, high up devas, with humans in between. But it is as a human that any being is regarded to have the highest chance of breaking free from the cycle and attaining Nirvana/the state of the Buddha. Time spent as a human should then be regarded as the ultimate opportunity and the most valuable treasure.

It is a rare chance to be born and exist as a human. The word “arigatou” was originally used to show appreciation and thanks to the compassion and blessings received from the Buddha. Used in everyday situations, it has now become a way to acknowledge the rare beauty of the moments when we are showered by the kindness of another.

Like with “goodbye” coming from a shortened “God be with ye”, there’s a lot of hidden history in some of the most common everyday expressions. Technically, there is no need to know the history to have correct usage, but it does help reevaluate what feelings the word/phrase was intended to convey.

I didn’t know this interesting history behind “arigatou.” Thanks for sharing ^_^ I love learning the origin of words, whether it’s Japanese or English (also didn’t know that about “goodbye” which you mentioned in your reply above. That’s interesting too XD)

There are so many words in my own language that I take for granted and never realize their hidden origins… I think looking for the history of words comes naturally when studying foreign languages, where we’re always on the lookout for hidden connections that could help us make sense of the whole mess😉. And it’s certainly fun.

Tadaima – meaning the same as the compound kanji —> “just now”. Used in this sense in everyday language. E.g. 只今故障中 —> “currently out of service”. If you were wondering how that becomes a greeting, do remember that the tadaima used when coming back home is short for “tadaima kaerimashita”, and the bulk of the meaning is contained in the (almost always omitted) second half.

Iikagen – also pretty straightforward. “good balance of increasing and decreasing” –> “to a proper degree”. More mysterious is the fact that the word can mean both “of the proper degree” and “half-assed”. But other languages have their fair share of this kind of thing e.g. the English “quite”. Quite slow –> somewhat slow, quite terrifying –> absolutely terrifying etc.

Sayounara – sayou (also written 然様, next to 左様) is a polite version of the common “sou”. Just like そうなら, then, sayounara would mean “if that’s it…” and is just used to signal an end to a conversation and imply the intention of parting… that something implied but not stated is the main meaning is of course counterintuitive, but nothing unusual in Japanese (I mean, look at tadaima above ;))

The existence of kanji urges us to try and understand the original meanings of words, doesn’t it? If it were just kana, nobobody would think twice about it😉.

Yep, investigating this kind of thing really helps Japanese learners like me get a handle on how the Japanese language works. Contractions and omissions sure are versatile. And of course, Japanese mimetics/ideophones are just plain fun!

然様 clears things up a bit. I was wondering what the kanji for ‘left’ (左) would mean in the context, but I suppose it was just a homophonetic simplification.

I thought “arigatou” was an expression of Japan’s debt-based society. “It is difficult to be thus” as in “it is difficult to accept your help/to be in your debt”. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems more grounded in reality than an obscure religious reference.

A good theory, and I’m sure it’d be quite popular if we were talking about a more recent word of murky origin. As is, the explained usage of arigatou can be traced way back to when religious references were serious business and in no way obscure. There’s another word like this in “mottainai”, which uses “not having a body” as a reference to the Buddhist idea of “not existing in its rightful shape or form”.

Well, Buddhist scholars had as much of an influence on Japanese as Christian scholars had on western languages.